


the things we'll never do

by jasperjorgen



Series: stand and watch it burn [6]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, That's Not How The Force Works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 19:25:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6484462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasperjorgen/pseuds/jasperjorgen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren never returns to the light. Instead, he sees the Order to its conclusion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the things we'll never do

Kylo swears and shouts and screams, and encounters no response.

In a past life, he only made appearances on a battlefield when a victory had been all but secured. He stepped out, performed some decisive blows, and reascended, saintlike, into the flagship. And that had been enough. Now, though, he was a panicking wreck, and a harbinger of a different kind of doom, of the Order’s desperation. As their attack strategy had crumbled, he’d lost all semblances of military organization–mask gone, armor shredded, a solitary commander of none. He carried in one hand his saber, and in the other, the leash of a primitive speeder that hadn’t yet been seized by the Resistance. By the Republic.

He knows the General is out there, somewhere– he can  _ sense _ a strong will and a seething disposition– and so traipses through the forest, swinging his saber wildly through the layers of vines that web this blasted rock! The rock the Order is going to die on is saturated with green, green everywhere, moss and leaves, thallium and chlorine– Kylo’s head is spinning, and he’s surrounded on all sides until his eye seizes the red of sopping fruits and human blood. 

Kylo hastens to his side over knotted roots and shrapnel, making the sound of someone falling down stairs. The frontline is already so distant the General is the only one in sight. His pallid form lies tangled at the base of a tree, trembling shallowly and leaking blood everywhere, from his scalp to his sleeves to his obliterated knees, black and white and red. “General, General, it’s  _ imperative _ , please.”

A coppery fog awakens in the air when Kylo rearranges Hux into a better position– it’s not much but adequate, as Hux gasps and stutters, lungs only somewhat intact. “So much more capable than our most generous calculation. Unexpected terraneous obstacles. A critical amount of our troops deserted.” Words spill out lawlessly, while he can enunciate. 

“And what happened to you?”

“Ren, there are so many force users. This one didn’t even look like a Jedi. Shot her side, it wasn’t fatal. She tore me apart. I had no idea.” Hux’s voice is thick; esophageal obstruction, Kylo knows, but the effect is a voice that’s been crying. 

“What now?”

“They’re advancing north. Go fast as possible. You’ll have to catch them at the capital. Hangar is there.” Hux speaks almost pleadingly of a victory, a fantasy. He coughs and convulses and Kylo, having leaned in close, is smattered with drops of blood. “They’re moving so quick. Left in haste. Ren, they think I’m dead.” 

“You are dead.” Kylo stands and lifts his boots from the sinking earth, spitting into his radio “Advance, advance, advance,” to anyone who listens. He mounts the speeder and Hux looks pained, fixing Kylo with a grim and awful look as his heart slows. 

Suddenly, Kylo can’t look him in the eye. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

Hux’s eyes flicker shut. “I know.”

As the speeder whisks him to another conflict, Kylo searches for and latches onto a thread of Hux’s consciousness, a thread of envy and loss and demise. For a moment he cherishes it, and something from his mind seeps into Kylo’s, a touch of the livid and despondent. But he knows the General is a tenacious man, who won’t lose consciousness until it’s lost forever. Not even Kylo could know a mind at the moment of death, so he grasps it tightly then lets go, whispering a last rite for the never-emperor. Furtively, he scrubs at his eyes; not even a heartless Jedi would be unaffected. 

And deep inside the Master of the Knights, inside his very real heart, Ben Solo loses the will to live. 

**Author's Note:**

> if it doesn't have Tragedy then it isn't a genuine Kylux™


End file.
